Daddy's New Toys

Since having kids and moving from a point-n-shoot camera to a digital SLR, I have found a great interest in photography. I'm a Canon user, and I've long sought to have a L-series lens to add to my equipment list. After saving my money, I finally pulled the trigger on a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens! This lens (and the 24-105mm f/4.0) are considered to be the two best general purpose lenses that Canon makes. I chose the 24-70mm over the 24-105mm due to the larger aperture, sacrificing the extra zoom. The 24-105mm has image stabilization, but that helps with handshake and not object motion. I have found myself in numerous situations where a larger aperture would have been extremely useful, and thus my decision to go with the 24-70mm lens.

I rented this lens for a weekend back in October 2008, then for a week while we were vacationing in Florida, and I really liked it. The one item that I was surprised with was that the camera's built-in flash would hit the lens barrel when it was fully extended, casting a shadow when taking photos of objects nearby (this is actually the 24mm side of the range -- this is a reverse-zooming lens where the longer barrel is the wider angle). Therefore, in addition to my new lens, I purchased Canon's latest flash -- the Speedlite 580EX II. The user manual for the flash is about a third the size of the camera manual! I have a whole new set of features to learn about now with this flash. I also purchased a lens UV filter for protection and better shots (so they say).

Here are some pictures of my new toys (showing first what I had before). Once the rumored 60D camera body is announced in the fall and I pull the trigger on that (I currently have the 20D body), I will be rocking and rolling. Now back to the flash's owners manual...